Stacks

Transition

Sphagnums

Cutting the peats.

in Gaelic- buin na monadh- literally 'take away from the moor'.

Kitchen scene, Inveroran Inn 1803

"About seven or eight travellers, probably drovers with as many dogs, (they) were sitting in a complete circle round a large peat-fire in the middle of the floor, each with a mess of porridge, in a wooden vessel, upon his knee: a pot suspended from one of the black beams, was boiling on the fire; two or three women pursuing their household business on the outside of the circle, children playing on the floor. There was nothing uncomfortable in this happy confusion: happy, busy or vacant faces, all looked pleasant; and even the smoky air , being a sort of natural indoor atmosphere of Scotland, served only to give a softening, I may say harmony, to the whole."
Dorothy Wordsworth, 'Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, 1803'
ed. Shairp, J.C. Edinburgh 1874 p.183